A two-year-old boy became the most talked-about passenger on the Philippine government’s sixth chartered repatriation flight from Abu Dhabi on Sunday — not for the distance he traveled, but for the mother who had been waiting for him at Villamor Airbase.
The child had been separated from his mother, a former overseas Filipino worker from Dubai, amid the ongoing Middle East conflict. DMW field personnel at the Abu Dhabi Migrant Workers Office secured the boy’s passage home, working alongside the Philippine Embassy and coordinating directly with UAE authorities to clear his travel. DSWD teams were on standby at the airbase to provide immediate care, and will continue assisting the family once they reach their home province.
The reunion was one of 338 individual stories aboard the Abu Dhabi-to-Manila flight, which touched down at Villamor Airbase in Pasay City at around 3 p.m. The Department of Migrant Workers confirmed the number included OFWs, their dependents, and stranded Filipinos holding visitor visas.
Government agencies — the DMW, OWWA, DOH, DSWD, and the Office of the President — had personnel at the airbase as part of what officials have described as a whole-of-government response directed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Sunday’s flight pushed the total number of Filipinos brought home from the Middle East since the start of the crisis to 3,248, according to the DMW. The figure marks a significant acceleration from the first week of March, when airspace closures across the region limited the government to commercial seat purchases on a handful of Emirates Airlines flights.
The Philippines has an estimated one million nationals in the UAE alone — more than in Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait combined — which is why successive charter operations have been concentrated out of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Reintegration assistance through DOLE and TESDA, covering job placement, skills training, and livelihood capital, is being extended to returning workers.Among 338 repatriates on the sixth UAE flight, the smallest passenger was two years old
